Beaumont Business Centres Ltd v Florala Properties Ltd

On a summary judgment application, the court must decide whether the claim has a realistic, rather than fanciful, prospect of success without conducting a mini-trial. A short point of law or construction may be determined summarily where the evidence is sufficient and the parties have had a proper opportunity to address it.

A deed regulating rights to light did not, on its proper construction, remove a tenant’s right to seek a final injunction against an actual or threatened infringement. Although the former owner could require the tenant to enter into a financial settlement, that power had not been exercised. The existence of the deed therefore did not establish that the claim was merely an attempt to obtain money or justify a conditional order requiring a cross-undertaking in damages.

Beaumont Business Centres Ltd, the tenant of an office building, brought proceedings seeking prohibitory and mandatory injunctions, or damages, in respect of proposed works by its neighbouring owner, Florala Properties Ltd, which threatened its rights to light.

Florala applied under CPR Part 24 for summary judgment on the injunction claims. It relied on a rights of light deed under which the former owner could require the tenant and current owner to enter into an adjoining property deed and under which settlement compensation would belong to the former owner. Florala argued that the deed showed that the claim was brought only to extract a payment and that an injunction had no realistic prospect of being granted.

The central issue was whether the deed deprived the tenant of a realistic prospect of obtaining final injunctive relief.

1. Summary judgment principles. The court applied the guidance in Easy Air Limited v Opal Telecom Limited [2009] EWHC 339 (Ch), approved by the Court of Appeal in TFL Management Services Limited v Lloyds TSB Bank PLC [2013] EWCA Civ 1415; [2014] 1 WLR 2006. The claimant required a realistic prospect of success, carrying some degree of conviction. The court had to avoid a mini-trial, while remaining entitled to analyse evidence and determine a short point of law or construction where the material was sufficient. The application was not based on the extent of the threatened interference, and the court could not decide at this stage whether the interference was trivial.
2. Construction of the deed. The tenant’s principal obligation under the rights of light deed was to enter into an adjoining property deed if required, subject to the deed’s provisions. Recital G(i) was permissive and facilitative. The former owner could compel the current owner and tenant to enter into a financial settlement concerning an actual or threatened infringement, but the deed did not require the former owner to do so.
3. Continuing right to seek an injunction. The defendant was not a party to the deed, and there was no evidence that the former owner contemplated requiring an adjoining property deed. Unless and until that occurred, the tenant remained entitled to pursue an injunction restraining an actual or threatened infringement of its rights to light. The deed therefore did not establish that the claim was solely a means of extracting a settlement sum.
4. Conditional order. Since the deed did not eliminate a realistic prospect of a final injunction, there was no principled basis for requiring the claimant to give a cross-undertaking in damages as a condition of pursuing the claim to trial.
5. The summary judgment application was dismissed.